Arkansas Investigating Huge Exxon Oil Spill in Mayflower

The Pegasus pipeline, that carries heavy crude oil from Canadian sands to Texas, suffered a 3 inch gash causing a minimum of 12,000 gallons of the thick, gooey substance to soak the area. At least two dozen homes have been evacuated, and the residents do not know when they will be able to return home.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has asked Exxon to make all documents pertaining to the 60 year old pipeline available to him.

“This incident has damaged private property and Arkansas’s natural resources. Homeowners have been forced from their homes as a result of this spill,” McDaniel said in a news release Tuesday. “Requesting that Exxon secure these documents and data is the first step in determining what happened and preserving evidence for any future litigation.”

Amber Bartlett left her home on Sunday. She had to return to get a few things and said the oil looked like a “river running down the road”. She said that the “smell was worse” than when she left.

She was asked if she knew there was a pipeline below the town. She said she never knew it was there.

Exxon Mobil met with displaced residents over the weekend to explain how they can make claims for losses. “If you have been harmed by this spill then we’re going to look at how to make that right,” Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. President Gary Pruessing told them.

Resident Darren Hale complained to CNN affiliate KHTV on Saturday that being forced to leave his home was frustrating.

“I’ve heard three contradictory answers as to when I will be able to go back home,” Hale said. He was first told it would be two days, but later that it would be up to two weeks, he said.